Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Running Four Dark Web Child Exploitation Websites

A Missouri man was sentenced today to life in prison for running four websites dedicated to sharing images and videos of child sexual abuse.

According to court documents and evidence at trial, Clint Robert Schram, 55, of Kansas City, hosted, managed, and maintained four different websites from his home. Each of these websites operated over the dark web, and each was devoted to advertising, distributing, and exchanging images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children. One of the websites allowed members to post images of children as young as 2 years old, and another had no restrictions on the types of child sexual abuse images that could be shared. Schram advertised and distributed child sexual abuse images over these websites, and he recruited, managed, and directed different tiers of “staff” members who helped run the websites.

On May 10, a federal jury convicted Schram of one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise and four counts each of advertisement of child pornography and conspiracy to advertise child pornography.

The following defendants have also been charged in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri in connection with Schram’s websites:

Defendant	Residence	Case Status
Ryan Neal Montgomery	Damascus, Oregon	Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to advertise child pornography; pending sentencing.
Joshua Howland	Burlington, Vermont	Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to advertise child pornography; pending sentencing.
John Jason Vails	Cleveland, Oklahoma	Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to advertise child pornography; sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison.
David Shawn Sobieck	Sequim, Washington	Passed away before trial; charges dismissed.
Thomas Davis Moore Jr.	Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee	Passed away before trial; charges dismissed.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Teresa A. Moore for the Western District of Missouri, Assistant Director Luis M. Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, and Special Agent in Charge Stephen Cyrus of the FBI Kansas City Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI’s Child Exploitation Operational Unit and Kansas City Field Office investigated the case, with valuable assistance provided by FBI field offices and resident agencies in Portland, Oregon; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Poulsbo, Washington; Homeland Security Investigations’ offices in Burlington, Vermont, and Boston; and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section’s (CEOS) High Technology Investigative Unit.

CEOS Trial Attorney Kyle P. Reynolds and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alison D. Dunning and David Luna for the Western District of Missouri are prosecuting the cases, with valuable assistance from the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the District of Oregon, District of Vermont, Northern District of Oklahoma, Western District of Washington, and Eastern District of Tennessee.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Justice Department. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.